Youth Essay

With reference to any one group of people that you have studied, discuss how their identity has been ‘mediated’.

I personally believe that over the past century, all media platforms have failed to portray youth in a positive light for a majority of the period and it has remained quite a controversial topic. I’m going to explore this question further through the use of film and newspaper case studies from each decade since the war years, as well as social media in the past 14 years. I will also be constantly referring back to the theories of Stanley Hall (1904), Osgerby (1998), Dick Hebdige (1988), Cohen (1972), Andy Medhurst (1998) and Gauntlett (2002) to provide me with a wider understanding on how the identities’ of youth are mediated.

I’m going to begin this debate with an anomaly in terms of youth representation- the war years (1939-45). The media in all involved countries took on the role of propaganda and used their power to mediate the identity of youth during this time as heroic and brave. The purpose of this was to create a strong sense of patriotism and persuade young men to fight in the war. The representation of youth was consistently positive with headlines such as; “There were casualties perhaps inevitable for the remarkable view... these men laid down their lives for this country,” (Daily Mail, 1939). The article went on to strongly emphasise this point, and when researching newspaper articles for this particular time period it was impossible to find any contradicting the view that young people are heroic and brave. This is because censorship becomes quite severe during times of war so as not to dishearten the public and to keep up morale. They all disrupt the typical theories from the likes of Hall, Gauntlett and Medhurst that follow the same theme of youth being displayed only a negative light as depressed, troublemakers, sex-addicts etc. Newspapers, along with films such as In Which We Serve (1942) which follows the story of brave youth who survived the sinking of the HMS Torrin, however do support one of Medhurst’s other ideas- his magnification theory. In this case the media selected the stereotype of youth being brave soldiers, inflated it into their defining characteristic and then established it as the most easily recognisable image. Although in more recent times it is uncommon for a majority of young people to engage themselves with reading newspapers, back before social media and the take off of television this would not have been the case.

With the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, it’s acceptable to group them all together in regards to how they firstly represented youth, and secondly the extent of which that representation mediated the identity of the youth. Each decade brought along a new ‘label’ for youth: 1950s was teddy boys; 1960s was instead three sub groups- hippies, Mods and Rockers; the 1970s saw the introduction of punk culture; 1980s became even darker with the decade of skinheads; 1990s appeared to revolve more around drugs, with the start of rave culture. Although the labels have varied, the background behind the labels of all youths supports Medhurst’s 1998 theory that “They are awful because they are not like us”- the “us” being white upper-class middle-aged males. All media platforms from the 50s to the 90s consistently display poor representations of the youth, and this consequently poorly mediates the identify of the youth, stereotyping them very negatively supporting Cohen's (1972) theory that the media creates a moral panic in order to sell itself. They also support another of Medhurst’s theories about magnification, but unlike with the war years it wasn’t showing them as heroic anymore. The 1950s began with positive portrayals of youth in the media, but this was primarily due to the term “teenager” being mediated by American media advertisers in order to create a new consumer group to target their products towards. This is a prime example of how the youth has had their identity mediated as the term widely used to describe them came from the media. The term teddy boys was used very negatively in the media with headlines in newspapers such as “Teddy boys- the first rebels without a cause,” (The Times Today, 1955) and a film made in that decade called The Blue Lamp following the story of a teddy boy protagonist who ends up shooting a heroic policeman. This quick deterioration supports Osgerby’s theory (1998) that argued it’s not hard to find negative representations of youth in post war Britain. With the 1960s, the manipulated identity of the hippies is one I found most interesting. For a group whose whole concept was peace, their identity was mediated to make them appear as gormless sex and drugs addicts (‘supported’ by the invention of recreational drugs such as LSD and ecstasy, and also the contraceptive pill). Most newspaper articles I found about this youth sub group mentioned their protests such as; “Police beat up hippies during Yorkville sit-in,” (Daily Mirror, 1964). The Beatles were a huge part of 1960s Britain, becoming the first large pop band in the UK. Fashion was inspired by them and their mock documentary, Hard Days Night, appears to give a much more accurate representation of youth lives. It, alongside how hippies tended to be portrayed during this decade, also supports Osgerby's"fun" and "trouble" theory. It was light-hearted, but unfortunately as its target audience would have been the youth rather than middle aged people, would not have had much of an ability to mediate any sort of identity, most older generations in control of the media like the focus on the negatives as young people could not yet defend themselves. 1970s saw the production of one of the most controversial films made- A Clockwork Orange, which I personally found to be my most interesting and relevant case study because the narrative of the film brings up the discussion as to how much power the media has. The violence in the film reflects the extremely portrayal of punks, and their violent identity was mediated by headlines such as "The Filth and the Fury! Who are those punks?" (Daily Mirror, 1976). Youth culture in the 1980s brought about the era of skinheads- often described as violent "neo-nazis" by the media, perhaps the cruellest representation of youth over the century. Despite those fitting the ‘skinhead’ description were accurately quite violent, the media generalised this identity to fit the whole youth group. Newspaper representation of youth during this decade strongly supports my opinion that this was the worst decade for youth in terms of how they were represented with headlines such as; "Nazi gang leader is jailed," (Daily Mirror) and "Police arrest 44 Neo-Nazi battles," (The Mail). This, along with films such as Scum mediated the identity of youth during this decade as an extremely violent group of people. The bias of the media can easily be seen through the lack of coverage on the Battle Of The Beanfield 1985. I personally had not heard about it before doing a lot of thorough research. It took place over several hours and saw Wiltshire Police violently preventing The Peace Convoy from setting up the 1985 Stonehenge Free Festival. 1990s saw rave culture become a predominant part of the decade with films such as Trainspotting and Human Traffic based off it. At least in Scum some of the characters appear to have morals and not be out of their mind on drugs all day every day. In terms of the general mediated identity of the youth during this decade, the no newspaper headlines I found appeared to be necessarily bad. A few pointed out rave culture such as Oxford Mail saying; "Police operation thwarts illegal 'rave' party," (Oxford Mail, 1991). 

The internet became a huge sensation during the 21st century, finally giving the youth an opportunity to become "producers of their own media texts" (Gauntlett 2002), via social media platforms such as Facebook (2004), Youtube (2005), Twitter (2006) and Instagram (2010). They now had platforms in which to portray themselves in a positive light and to reinvent stereotypes- but this didn't happen. I believe that a majority of youth do attempt to break stereotypes, but those who do fit the theories of Stanley Hall, Dick Hebdige and Osgerby are the ones who use social media the most and have got their names out most. Prime examples of this are the blue whale challenge, where youths show they were depressed and the London riots, showing they are essentially criminals. This fits in perfectly with Stanley Hall's 1998 theory that makes these arguments, almost proving him right. The transition into the noughties saw a shift in film narrative and genre- producers began to show young characters in a much more positive light, and began edging away from social realism to more entertaining genres such as fantasy, drama and comedy. Prime examples of this are Billy Elliot (£72.8 million), The Inbetweeners (£64.8 million) and the Harry Potter franchise (a whopping £1.75 billion). All had a significantly higher box office than the likes of Transpotting (£48 million). This showed producers that it was more profitable, as their target audience and the group who typically spends most at the cinema, 15-24 year olds, prefer to go against most youth theories such as Stanley Hall's that likes to put them in a negative light. These higher grossing films more so fit Dick Hebdige's 1988 theory of youth being trouble and fun. It took decades for film producers to come to this realisation that youth prefer to be more accurately represented, as not all of us are violent drug addicts. Attack the Block, a film from this decade that did change genre but stuck with the same, negative representation of youth had a box office of only £4.1 million. There can't be more solid evidence to prove my point. In terms of newspaper headlines, the older generation remained the target audience so newspapers could still make a profit from following negative stereotypes of the youth. They mediated a very popular identity associated with youths at this time- chavs (standing for Council House and Violent). One article had a whole article titled; “Fashion crisis as chavs dress like clowns!” (Sunday Mirror, 2003). This derogatory term penned around the same time as ankle bracelets were piloted. Youth representation remained bad, following Medhurst's theory once again of being awful "because they are not like us".


Young people over the last century have been continually stereotyped as primarily depressed, violent and addicted to drugs. One exception to this is the war years for propaganda purposes. The media mediates all stereotypes of youth, as during war time young people were genuinely seen as heroes, whereas during other decades they are typically viewed by the older audience as depressed, violent and addicted to drugs. A lot of phrases we use to describe particular groups of a decade, such as chavs, actually originated from newspapers and films. Only in more recent times, but only with films, have they started showing teenagers in a more positive and accurate light. This only because with films such as the Harry Potter franchise they came to the realisation that it's more profitable as their target audience, young people, find it more enjoyable to watch films not depicting them as criminals. With newspapers, excluding the war years, they maintained a very negative representation of youths. They didn't have to change, as the older generation more commonly buy their product and prefer to look down on youths. Cohen's 1978 theory, explaining how "The media creates an idea of youth as a folk devil which fuels the negative representation of youth but also creates an attractive tribe for disaffected youths to join", is the perfect summary for the impact this has on the public. It creates a very generalised identity based on a small minority (following Medhurst's magnification theory).

------ (redoing 50s-90s)

With the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, it’s acceptable to group them all together in regards to how they firstly represented youth, and secondly the extent of which that representation mediated the identity of the youth. Each decade brought along a new ‘label’ for youth: 1950s was teddy boys; 1960s was instead three sub groups- hippies, Mods and Rockers; the 1970s saw the introduction of punk culture; 1980s became even darker with the decade of skinheads; 1990s appeared to revolve more around drugs, with the start of rave culture. Although the labels have varied, the background behind the labels of all youths supports Medhurst’s 1998 theory that “They are awful because they are not like us”- the “us” being white upper-class middle-aged males. All media platforms from the 50s to the 90s consistently display poor representations of the youth, and this consequently poorly mediates the identify of the youth, stereotyping them very negatively supporting Cohen's (1972) theory that the media creates a moral panic in order to sell itself. They also support another of Medhurst’s theories about magnification, but unlike with the war years it wasn’t showing them as heroic anymore. The 1950s began with positive portrayals of youth in the media, but this was primarily due to the term “teenager” being mediated by American media advertisers in order to create a new consumer group to target their products towards. This is a prime example of how the youth has had their identity mediated as the term widely used to describe them came from the media. The term teddy boys was used very negatively in the media with headlines in newspapers such as “Teddy boys- the first rebels without a cause,” (The Times Today, 1955) and a film made in that decade called The Blue Lamp following the story of a teddy boy protagonist who ends up shooting a heroic policeman. This quick deterioration supports Osgerby’s theory (1998) that argued it’s not hard to find negative representations of youth in post war Britain. With the 1960s, the manipulated identity of the hippies is one I found most interesting. For a group whose whole concept was peace, their identity was mediated to make them appear as gormless sex and drugs addicts (‘supported’ by the invention of recreational drugs such as LSD and ecstasy, and also the contraceptive pill). Most newspaper articles I found about this youth sub group mentioned their protests such as; “Police beat up hippies during Yorkville sit-in,” (Daily Mirror, 1964). The Beatles were a huge part of 1960s Britain, becoming the first large pop band in the UK. Fashion was inspired by them and their mock documentary, Hard Days Night, appears to give a much more accurate representation of youth lives. It, alongside how hippies tended to be portrayed during this decade, also supports Osgerby's"fun" and "trouble" theory. It was light-hearted, but unfortunately as its target audience would have been the youth rather than middle aged people, would not have had much of an ability to mediate any sort of identity, most older generations in control of the media like the focus on the negatives as young people could not yet defend themselves. 1970s saw the production of one of the most controversial films made- A Clockwork Orange, which I personally found to be my most interesting and relevant case study because the narrative of the film brings up the discussion as to how much power the media has. The violence in the film reflects the extremely portrayal of punks, and their violent identity was mediated by headlines such as "The Filth and the Fury! Who are those punks?" (Daily Mirror, 1976). Youth culture in the 1980s brought about the era of skinheads- often described as violent "neo-nazis" by the media, perhaps the cruellest representation of youth over the century. Despite those fitting the ‘skinhead’ description were accurately quite violent, the media generalised this identity to fit the whole youth group. Newspaper representation of youth during this decade strongly supports my opinion that this was the worst decade for youth in terms of how they were represented with headlines such as; "Nazi gang leader is jailed," (Daily Mirror) and "Police arrest 44 Neo-Nazi battles," (The Mail). This, along with films such as Scum mediated the identity of youth during this decade as an extremely violent group of people. The bias of the media can easily be seen through the lack of coverage on the Battle Of The Beanfield 1985. I personally had not heard about it before doing a lot of thorough research. It took place over several hours and saw Wiltshire Police violently preventing The Peace Convoy from setting up the 1985 Stonehenge Free Festival. 1990s saw rave culture become a predominant part of the decade with films such as Trainspotting and Human Traffic based off it. At least in Scum some of the characters appear to have morals and not be out of their mind on drugs all day every day. In terms of the general mediated identity of the youth during this decade, the no newspaper headlines I found appeared to be necessarily bad. A few pointed out rave culture such as Oxford Mail saying; "Police operation thwarts illegal 'rave' party," (Oxford Mail, 1991).